Featured Posts

1. “Can we take a look at the old theater?” My friend and I were in downtown Detroit and had ventured into the lobby of something called the Michigan building. Visitors to town, we were unsure what kind of cajoling would be needed to let us into the crumbling theater that we’d heard was hidden […]

“Cruel” is not a word usually liked to Our Town, that glorious, perfect play of the everyday and the cosmic. But it’s highly appropriate in the case of the Huntington Theatre’s current production, a revamp of David Cromer’s devastating, super successful staging previously seen in Chicago, New York, and L.A. Playwright Thornton Wilder’s contention is that […]

Trendsetting alert! Seminar is the latest straight play to employ a scenic device popular around town these days: The Dramatic, End-of-Play Set Change. A DEOPSC (as it is popularly known) occurs at a climactic storytelling moment when a formerly unchanging set disappears or unexpectedly moves, thus expensively symbolizing Momentous Change and Revelation. In Seminar, the DEOPSC […]

Soho Rep’s star-laden staging of Uncle Vanya is already sold out—sorry, guys—so this edition of “Favorite Moment” will have to take the place of actual theatergoing for you ticketless chumps out there. Towards the end of the play’s second act, step-relations Yelena (Maria Dizzia) and Sonya (Merritt Weaver) reconnect after years of detachment and mistrust. […]

Winning two Tony Awards apparently isn’t enough to warrant above-the-title billing in movies these days. The wonderful Christine Ebersole is the only person on The Big Wedding poster not to be named… even someone named Ben Barnes (?!) gets himself up there. Look at her, sadly watching from the corner… Ever the underdog, Ye Old Theatre…

The Mark Hellinger is the most beautiful theater on Broadway. It hasn’t housed a show since 1989. Sadness of sadnesses—I know. Despite this shockingly gorgeous interior… …despite this intricately designed and perfectly executed ornamentation… …despite this tremendously preserved craftsmanship… …despite all of this, the Mark Hellinger sees no dancing feet, no 11 o’clock numbers, no matinee […]

In Ann Arbor, the Michigan Theater sports a couple pizzazzy drinking fountains (above). In this otherwise straightforwardly outfitted venue, they’re the BANG… the sexy earrings, the stylish cufflinks. The rest of the theater seems to shrug, “yeah, I’m good looking… (thank you, by the way)… but look at the play, not me, why don’t cha?” […]

Putting history onstage comes with perks and pitfalls. If the person or event depicted is beloved, he/she/it comes with a built-in sense of affection; audiences already know they like what they’re about to see. But such storytelling isn’t without hazards. Representing true tales situates everything under a harsher magnifying glass, and storytelling choices can irk […]

Sometimes, dead silence is the loudest applause. Indeed, the best moments in theatergoing—staggering moments, spine-tingling moments—often cast a heavy, suspended quiet, not a clappy rumble. There sits the audience, overwhelmed and totally involved, the noisy slapping of hands the last of its concerns. Such an earned, weighted silence came towards the end of Christopher Durang’s Vanya […]